Thursday, March 31, 2016

In the wake of any--of yet another--jihadi terrorist attack, Obama chides Americans for daring to question whether Islam is indeed a religion of peace and uses the most imprecise of euphemisms--"violent extremism"--as a way to muddy the waters re the religious origins of the threat we face.And, as if to add insult to injury, he's about to inaugurate a humongous mosque not too far from the White House:

This week in the Washington, D.C., suburb of Lanham, Md., President Obama and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan are expected to open the largest American mosque in the world. According to the mosque’s website, the $100 million Turkish-American Culture and Civilization Center “was built with Turkish funding under the supervision of the Turkish religious foundation (Diyanet).”

In Northern Virginia there is also a large mosque named Dar al-Hijrah, which some have accused of serving as a Hamas front. It was the home of the terrorist spiritual leader Anwar al-Awlaki, who was accused of mentoring two of the Sept. 11 hijackers.

What a perfect setup for a jihadi pincer movement on the nation’s capital from Maryland and Virginia.

Also worth remembering is a statement by Turkish President Erdogan: “There is no moderate or immoderate Islam. Islam is Islam and that’s it.” Why would we not take seriously statements by bin Laden and Mr. Erdogan? Denying symptoms and refusing to see a doctor does not make an ailment disappear. Neither does denying the terrorist threat diminish the threat.

True enough, but Obama isn't about threat-diminishment as much as he is about running out the clock and letting the next Oval Office occupant deal with the mess he's left.

Then again, when you elevate some of the most right-abridging nations on the planet--the current roster includes Algeria, Bahrain, Bolivia, Chad, Cuba, Djibouti, Ecuador, Egypt, Guinea, Kuwait, Libya, Namibia, Pakistan, Sudan, and Venezuela--to be the arbiters of "human rights," what else do you expect?When will the U.S. and other democracies take the next logical step and call for the entire odious enterprise to be scrapped?

Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has come out against recent terrorist attacks in Pakistan, Belgium and Turkey, saying understanding and love are the only means by which to fight such violence meant to "spread fear and distrust."

"Each of these attacks was different, but all had a common thread: they were carried out with a goal to spread fear and distrust, and turn members of a community against each other," the social media mogul said Sunday on Facebook.

Zuckerberg made the call for global action shortly after a suicide bomber killed 72 people in the Pakistani city of Lahore.

"I believe the only sustainable way to fight back against those who seek to divide us is to create a world where understanding and empathy can spread faster than hate, and where every single person in every country feels connected and cared for and loved," he wrote in the post. "That's the world we can and must build together."

After communicating these heartfelt if egregiously squishy words, Zuckerthingy broke out into song:Imagine there's no jihad,It's easy if you try.No Quran beseechments,And no taqiyyah lies.Imagine all the ummahShunning the shariah...You may say I'm a genius'Cuz I birthed the Facebook craze.I'd love to win a Nobel Peace PrizeAnd hear lots of "hurrays"...

It would be an understatement on an epic scale to say that Abrams is not a fan. Re the Canadian Palestine-venerator, Abrams writes:

[The appointment of Lynk is] a travesty of justice, a breach of the UN’s own rules—and absolutely par for the course when it comes to the UN and Israel. In his press conference on the Human Rights Council’s session, which thank God is now over, the U.S ambassador to the UN, Keith Harper, did not even mention this despicable appointment. He did however, denounce the “especially disturbing” resolution to set up a database of businesses operating in settlements in the West Bank and Golan Heights. The resolution “only serves to reinforce the council’s one-sided actions against Israel” and exceeded the council’s authority, he said. Better than nothing, I guess.

Lynk will never set foot in Israel or the Palestinian territories, because the Israeli reaction to this nonsense is to deny these “special rapporteurs” a visa. He can write his report in Ontario, [where he now resides], and there will be no surprises in it: another in the long line of UN assaults on the Jewish state.

Whatever moral authority the UN once possessed has long since been squandered on efforts to punish Israel (that uppity, stiff-necked Jewish state that has the effrontery to exist--and thrive--on land claimed in perpetuity for Allah).

In Geneva’s grand U.N. “Human Rights” Council chamber, 750 people assembled, pounced on the Jewish state, broadcast the spectacle online, and produced hundreds of articles and interviews in dozens of languages championing the results.

On the ground, Israelis are being hacked to death on the streets, stabbed in buses, slaughtered in synagogues, mowed down with automobiles, and shot in front of their children.

At the New York’s UN headquarters, 8,100 NGO representatives gathered from all corners of the globe, in addition to government delegates, and watched the weight of the entire world of women’s rights descended on only one country.

On the ground, Palestinian women are murdered and subjugated for the sake of male honor, Saudi women can’t drive, Iranian women are stoned to death for so-called “adultery,” Egyptian women have their genitals mutilated and Sudanese women give birth in prison with their legs shackled for being Christian.

Isn’t it about time that people stopped calling the U.N. a harmless international salon or a bad joke?

The awkwardly named position of United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, has always been controversial.

The past one, Makaram Wibisono, an Indonesian former diplomat, quit earlier this year, saying he failed in his mandate because Israel declined to give him access to the Palestinian territories. His predecessor was Richard Falk, who was widely criticized for anti-Israel extremism.

Now, the office is beset with a curiously Canadian scandal, thanks to the swift condemnation of Michael Lynk, the new Canadian appointee, by Stéphane Dion, Canada’s Foreign Minister, arguably on spurious grounds.

Lynk, a professor of law at Western University in London, Ont., defended himself on Monday, saying he has been unfairly attacked with “snippets” of his writings and speeches taken deliberately out of context.

Lynk brings to the UN Human Rights Council an extensive history of anti-Israel activism. He has taken a leadership role in Arab lobby groups, including CEPAL (Canadian-Palestinian Educational Exchange), for which he sits on their advisory board. CEPAL promotes Israel Apartheid Week and Boycott and Divestment drives, calls for Israel’s prosecution for “war crimes,” and has featured the infamous Norm Finkelstein at one of its conferences. Finkelstein has been quoted in Haaretz for the bizarre statements he has made: that “nobody really defends Israel anymore” and “if you go on college campuses, there are some Hillel faithfuls who are bringing an IDF soldier to try to explain that not all IDF soldiers are war criminals.” He also declares that Israel has “lost the battle for public opinion” and arrogantly predicts that “once support for Israeli policy becomes widely unacceptable in the United States, the ‘self-designated voices for Israel,’ as he calls them, will quickly drop out.” Finkelstein once justified Palestinian violence, stating that “international law says people fighting for self-determination can use force in order to achieve their independence.”

In accordance with the aggressive anti-Semitic and anti-Israel activism that emanates from CEPAL, UN Watch reported that Michael Lynk has supported the elimination of Israel in “One State” conferences and has stated odiously that “the solution” dates back to 1948, to which he refers as “the start of ethnic cleansing” by Israel when it was founded. One need only take a glance back in history to recognize that the British Partition Plan favored the Arabs in designating a small strip of land to Israel, in its aim to create independent Arab and Jewish States. Yet Israel was attacked by five Arab States seeking its obliteration from its birth, and is still forced to defend itself against annihilation and terrorist attacks against its citizens today.

Lynk’s discreditable and influential appointment directly empowers his ambitions to delegitimize Israel and ultimately to aid Israel’s enemies, which seek to destroy it. Yet Lynk’s menacing views do not stop at unjustifiably bashing Israel — the only country that exemplifies human rights in the Middle East. UN Watch also reported that Lynk blamed the 9/11 attacks on Western nations, prompting it to publish in a statement referring to Brussels: “one day after Islamists murdered and maimed hundreds in the heart of Europe, the UN’s appointment of someone who instinctively blames such attacks on the alleged crimes of Western nations sends absolutely the worst message, at the worst time.”

Indeed. So while Lynk protests that "some of his views are shared by the United Nations and Amnesty International''--what a joke!--and considers his appointment to be an "honour"--how revolting!--Ms. Williams explains why this "human rights" body is so heinous and so ill-equipped to pass judgment on Israel (or, for that matter, on any other democracy):

Among the UN Human Rights Council are some of the basest human rights abusers: Saudi Arabia (which still stones women and sanctions beheadings and cutting off of hands), Cuba (which imposes arbitrary imprisonments, extrajudicial executions, and limits on freedom of expression), China (which enforces detention without trial, surveillance, house arrests, and imprisonment of human rights defenders), Nigeria (plagued by inter-communal conflict, abuses and murder of Christians and minorities in the north by the jihadist group Boko Haram and human rights violations by the Nigerian security forces).

Update: In his parting shot, Lynk's predecessor, Makarim Winesobo (which happens to be my new favorite name), knew exactly who to blame for the rise in Palestinian violence against Jews--Israel, and its "illegal occupation."

Monday, March 28, 2016

That's a thought that came to me as I read this Tablet piece by Todd Gitlin. Gitlin warns readers about Israel's "illiberality" and how it has resulted in "liberal" American Jews being embarrassed by and permanently estranged from the Jewish state:

Between 1948 and 1967, American Jews could cherish the state of Israel on both particularist and universalist grounds. Israel was the state of the Jews, for sure. It had a part to play in the great universalism of nationhood. But it also leaned socialist. It could be exhibited as a case study of national liberation. Palestinians had no reality to the great majority of American Jews, but the Israeli victory in 1947-48 served both particularist and universalist needs. The Jews of the liberal-left were doubly blessed. Be it Old Jerusalem or New, Holy Land or God-fearing America as a “city on a hill,” the exalted state located elsewhere had long been, for the Diaspora, a badge of identity, a palpable sign that history has a vector and of renewal. Pride in the survival—indeed, the triumph—of the Jewish state evoked pride.

The Israeli victory in the Six Day War for a while re-cemented the salience of the Holocaust. David had crushed Goliath. But in the conquest of the Territories lay demon seeds. The statehood of Israel had the sanction of international law. It still does. But when Israel became an illegal occupier of the territories it conquered in 1967, it forfeited its universalist mantle. It made Israel look like a less compelling answer to the immense question of what might be left of chosenness, which dovetailed with the problem of what meaning might be found in the Holocaust. First under center-left Labor governments and more radically under the Likud, Israel interpreted chosenness as a title to land and a warrant for defying world opinion and international law. It justified its aggressions as defenses. But this was an almost fatal mistake. Israeli exceptionalism abandoned the high moral ground. Gripped by messianism and a volatile brew of desperation and truculence, Israel defies the hard-fought achievements of the Diaspora as it becomes steadily more illiberal, and thus more offensive to Jews who remain among America’s most liberal populations. In a world of sinful nations, Israel now, simultaneously, claims the privilege of victimhood and the right to be honored as democratic even as it abandons liberality. This is a hell of a climb-down from tikkun olam, the injunction to repair the world and welcome the stranger. It offers little solace or cohesion for American Jews. For the built-in ambiguities that face all minorities in America, Israel is no spiritual refuge.

By now, a growing minority of younger American Jews are so intensely angry at the actually existing, increasingly illiberal Israel, which is no longer the Israel of Martin Buber and Paul Newman, as to reject “Zionism” as a dirty word and endorse the whole bundle of BDS politics, including the academic boycott—a direction made easier as American-Jewish oligarchs fund land-grabs and implant enclave fortresses in East Jerusalem and on the West Bank. Some are naïve; some are thoughtless; some can think of no other way to get the Israeli government’s attention. Not many liberal American Jews go so far, but the gulf that has opened up between Israeli and American Jews will be a fundamental feature of the Jewish landscape for a long time...

Sounds to me like "liberal American Jews" (Gitlin included) haven't got a clue about what animates Israel or Judaism. And if being "liberal" means dissolving your identity and aligning yourself with your enemies, these Jews are already lost to us.

[Fidel] Castro ripped into the president and his words during the visit in El Granma, the official state newspaper of the Cuban Communist Party, bringing up Obama's relative youth, the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 and the role of both countries in ending the apartheid in South Africa and elsewhere on the continent in an article titled "El hermano Obama."

"Native populations do not exist at all in the minds of Obama," Castro wrote. "Nor does he say that racial discrimination was swept away by the Revolution; that retirement and salary of all Cubans were enacted by this before Mr. Barack Obama was 10 years old."

Referring to the 1961 failed invasion of the Bay of Pigs, Castro wrote of the U.S.' "mercenary force with cannons and armored infantry, equipped with aircraft ... trained and accompanied by warships and aircraft carriers in the U.S. raiding our country.

Nothing can justify this premeditated attack that cost our country hundreds of killed and wounded."

Castro referred also to Obama's invocation of both countries' role in the end of apartheid in South Africa, remarking upon his country's 1975 intervention in Angola backing the leftist People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola against other U.S.-backed revolutionary forces. Ridding apartheid South Africa of nuclear weapons "was not the goal of our solidarity," he wrote, "but [rather] to help the people of Angola, Mozambique, Guinea Bissau and other fascist colonial rule of Portugal."

In referring to the origins of South Africa's nuclear weapons, Castro mentioned the "help that racist South Africa had received from [Ronald] Reagan and Israel."

"I do not know what Obama has to say on this story now," Castro wrote, adding, "although it is very doubtful that I knew absolutely nothing."

"My modest suggestion is to reflect and do not try now to develop theories about Cuban politics."

Cuba "has no need of gifts" from the United States, Castro concluded. "Our efforts will be legal and peaceful, because it is our commitment to peace and brotherhood of all human beings living on this planet."

The purpose of a college experience isn’t to make students feel as if they are in a well-insulated bubble. Just as depictions of a typical college student as a video game-addicted humanities major who uses the pronoun “they” and abides by a strict gluten-free diet disregards the lived experiences of countless students, so too do any allusions that colleges are idyllic enclaves.

Enrolling at Williams for example, does not immediately reshape all students’ lives into concentric circles with Frosh Quad at their center. Instead, each student has a Venn diagram-like series of circles of their families, previous neighborhoods, schools and friend groups, all bartering for space among 2,100 other students.

Over the last five years, to help mitigate some of the tensions that are bound to arise from this complex configuration, staff members at the Davis Center have been leading workshops on social identity formation and facilitation as part of the spring and fall training sessions for Junior Advisors. These trainings are complemented by an array of events during First Days that seek to provide the entering class an introduction to the identities and perspectives they are likely to encounter at Williams.

Virtually every entering class arrives on campus better versed on issues related to gender, race and sexuality than their predecessors. Challenges posed by trying to keep up with the pace of this ever changing community partly explain why college students are such fraught discursive subjects.

Rapidly shifting demographics, an evolving language of gender and sexual identity so vibrant it would make Hilda Doolittle [a modernist poet known for challenging gender norms] proud, are but just two of the factors pushing colleges through existential dilemmas.

There are broader questions as well, such as: Is college a place for intellectual exploration? Or is it a glorified worker-training program?

Sadly, in our time it is a place for indoctrination in the leftist mishegas that engenders thin-skinned drones who deplore free speech and who are adrift in a Venn diagram-like series of circles of like-minded moral narcissists (a vast and remorseless echo chamber).

Sunday, March 27, 2016

It's all our fault, you see, so we'd better stop noticing that something (i.e. the jihad imperative as a means of asserting Islamic supremacism) is rotten at the crux of Islam:

Washington: President Barack Obama on Saturday urged Americans not to stigmatise Muslims following this week's deadly attacks in Brussels, saying that doing so is "counterproductive" in the fight against radical Islam.

In his weekly media address, Obama said Muslim-Americans are "our most important partners in the nation's fight against those who would wage violent jihad.

"That's why we have to reject any attempt to stigmatise Muslim-Americans, and their enormous contributions to our country and our way of life," Obama said.

"Such attempts are contrary to our character, to our values, and to our history as a nation built around the idea of religious freedom. It's also counterproductive," he said.

"It plays right into the hands of terrorists who want to turn us against one another -- who need a reason to recruit more people to their hateful cause."

Actually, what plays right into the hands of terrorists is infidels' pathological/suicidal ignorance about Islam. If we had even half a clue, we'd realize that when you consider the sorts of things that are in Islamic holy writ and that tens of millions of Muslims take literally, it's a miracle that more of them aren't actively involved in waging violent jihad.Update:Obama is a-kvetchin' because not everyone looks though the same lens--his:

“Some people are just watching Fox News; some people are just reading the New York Times,” Obama said in January during a YouTube interview with Destin Sandlin, creator of a popular video series on science. “They almost occupy two different realities in terms of how they see the world.”

The president has bemoaned the absence of a “common baseline of facts” underpinning the political debate and accused Republicans of peddling — through their own information channels — an “alternate reality” on issues such as climate change, the economy, and threats posed by Ebola and the Islamic State.

"A common baseline of facts"--that's the funniest thing I've heard all day.

Never mind "a clash of civilizations." It really boils down to a clash over the definition/understanding of "peace." And at the moment, the jihadis' definition--"peace" being the situation that will prevail once Islam does--is in ascendance.

Thousands of Palestinian terrorists, including masterminds of suicide bombings and murderers of women and children, are given cash handouts by the UK, the Daily Mail revealed Sunday. A Mail two-month global investigation has revealed that in Judea and Samaria and Gaza, “despite promises by the ruling Palestinian Authority (PA) to end the practice of paying aid money to convicted terrorists … [have] simply duped the West by allowing the Palestine Liberation Organization to hand out the cash instead.”

Britain gives £72 million ($101 million) a year to the Palestinian Arabs, according to the report, “more than one-third of which goes straight to the PA,” which “openly admits supporting terrorists whom it hails as heroes for fighting illegal occupation, awarding lifetime payments that rise depending on time spent in jail and the seriousness of crimes.”

One example is a Hamas “master bomber” Abdallah Barghouti, who was given 67 life sentences: he has received a total of £106,000 ($150,000). UK funds also pay out “salaries” to the families of suicide bombers, as well as to “teenagers involved in the latest upsurge of deadly attacks on Israel.”

The UK government’s Department for International Development (DFID) and the European Union “are still effectively supporting these payments to thousands of terrorists – despite claims to have ended such links two years ago,” the Daily Mail report insists. This has been confirmed “by former prisoners and families receiving the cash, and in official statements by the PA.” Chairman Mahmoud Abbas used part of the UK gifts — £8 million ($11.31 million) — to build a palace in Ramallah.

And what a lovely edifice it is, one befitting a tin pot autocrat who has bamboozled the world into supporting his eliminationist cause.

The federal government, in its 2016 budget announced Tuesday, allocated $35 million over five years to create the Office of the Community Outreach and Counter-radicalization coordinator.

[University of Calgary poli-sci prof Michael] Zekulin said counter-radicalization efforts won’t stop young Canadians from joining terrorist groups, but it could minimize the number of individuals going down the radicalized road.

He said setting up the Office is “the right way forward,” but its announcement is rather “generic” and the government doesn’t really lay out any clear plans as to how it will actually work with community and law enforcement stakeholders to counter radicalism.

The Palestinian rep, whose Israel-despising views are entirely in synch with that odious body's, is furious because "Israel continues to systematically violate the inalienable rights of the Palestinians while enjoying impunity from the international community.”Impunity from the international community, eh?Wow, he's quite the little Ogden Nash.Henry Wadsworth Hatefellow?FYI, I was able to locate the poem from which the line was extracted. Here it is:

Those Jooos are at it again.They've been at it since who knows when.They're enjoying impunityFrom the international community,And less us all say, "Amen."

Thursday, March 24, 2016

Probably not, since timorous infidels will do anything to avoid having to "profile" and risk being called "racist":

The Israeli profiling approach trains and encourages security personnel to rely on their impressions and gut reactions in processing passengers, while allowing for the fact that this gut reaction would often be triggered by the ethnicity of the suspect, meaning they are Arab.

The Ben Gurion International Airport security watch begins before passengers reach the departures area. Passengers encounter the first security checkpoint in their car, at the airport’s entrance, where security personnel check passengers and the people who accompany them. They are authorized to pull cars aside and conduct searches. At the departures area, spotters seek out suspicious passengers and have the authority to check them on the spot. Security personnel have access to passenger lists, which they cross check with regularly updated lists of suspects under surveillance, and send alerts regarding passengers who must undergo a detailed security check.

Israeli security checks do not stop at a passenger’s luggage or even their person — agents are authorized to instruct passengers to open their email accounts or Facebook pages for an inspection. More than a few Arab passengers looking to enter Israel have been rejected based on their online activity.

In European and American airports, by comparison, the security check begins only after passengers have completed their check-in, and line up with their carry-on luggage to be processed by security personnel. This means that the entire area before the check-in counters is fair play — as was the case in Brussels — and the area past the counters, where duty-free shops, bars, restaurants and newsstands are located, is equally exposed and vulnerable.

Pini Shif, the former head of security for the Israel Airports Authority, said that “in terms of airport security, the Europeans are 40 years behind Israel.”

The news that 200 Syrian refugees being billeted at various hotels in Hamilton, Ontario were sent packing to make room for Garth Brooks fans inspired the following:Justin Trudeau sings:Blame it all on my roots,My bad case of the cutes,They put me where I am today.I love refugees.

'Cause I want loads of new votersWho will be a bunch of Trudeau doters.Full of gratitudeBut no attitude.I'm a refugee promoter.Got a heavy burden? I'll be your toter.'Cause I want loads of new voters...

Mark Steyn riffs on a reader's idea of opening a PR/advertising agency to help "Imagine"-minded infidels deal with the aftermath of terrorist attacks:

Want an avatar but you're unsure about the tricolor of whichever European country's been bombed today? Need a quickie illustration of Tintin, Manekin Pis, Asterix, Topo Gigio, the Little Mermaid, the blondes from Abba, etc, with their heads at an angle and a tear running down? Maybe a Belgian chocolate melting from a broken heart, or a frite in mayonnaise tinged with regret? How about the all-in-one hashtag that instantly updates to each new slaughter? #JeSuisParis, #JeSuisBruxelles, #JeSuisYourTownHere! Call Sad-Mart, the one-stop shop for all your useless solidarity gestures! #NousSommesEverywhere!

I blame it on the madness--the communal hollering and wallowing--that followed Princess Diana's death.That and a pathological ignorance re history, Islamic supremacism and the jihad imperative as set out in Islam's core holy texts, of course.

This is what passes for Purim humour in the Canadian Jewish News--a fake interview with The Donald, and a photo comparing him to Haman, an enemy who posed an existential threat to Jewry.Trump is many things, but surely he isn't that. And surely it's the height of lunacy to claim that he is.Ayatollahtaschen? I'm with you. Hitlertaschen? That works, too.But Donaldtaschen? Seriously?Not only is that not funny, it's an insult to our intelligence.

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Some folks in Brussels have responded to the jihad in their midst by chalking comforting bromides on the sidewalk.The message I would have written in chalk is a paraphrase of a line by T.S Eliot: When it comes to terror perpetrated in the name of Islam, humankind cannot bear very much reality.

A new Hitler is in Europe. It is not Donald Trump. It is not the “right-wing.” The new Hitler is very much like the old Hitler: he hates Jews. He has contempt for the historical patrimony of Western civilization. He means to rule by an iron fist and subordinate every other power to his will. He respects only strength, and despises weakness. The new Hitler is not just one man, but millions — millions who believe in an ideology that teaches warfare against and subjugation of free people under its heel.

Obama spent an entire--what?--20 seconds or so dealing with the terrorist attack in Cuba in the most generic, anodyne way possible (i.e. no mention whatsoever of Islam, Muslims or the jihad) before launching back into his prepared statement praising the Castro brothers and their awesome country.

As facts gradually emerge about Monday’s stabbing at a Canadian Forces recruitment centre in Toronto, one detail in particular has attracted special attention. “Allah told me to do this, Allah told me to come here and kill people,” the accused allegedly said, prompting conjecture that the attack may have been an act of “terrorism.” These comments “fit the profile” of a “terrorist,” Toronto Police Chief Mark Saunders commented — even as he cautioned against the “Islamophobia nonsense” and stereotyping of Muslims almost-inevitably generated by announcements of “terrorist” incidents involving Muslims.

But would an assailant of any other religion who claimed that “God” instructed him to kill or wound similarly be deemed to “fit” the terrorist mould? The very fact that a reference to “Allah” is apparently sufficient to trigger suspicions of “terrorism” is itself problematic: a manifestation of the tendency to equate “terrorism” with acts of violence committed by Muslims. The very fact that the dominant “profile” of a “terrorist” is someone who appeals to Allah and Islam — rather than to xenophobic or white-supremacist or militant right-wing ideas — to justify his violence is a reflection of the fallacious but popular belief that “not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims.”

Not all terrorists are Muslims, but most of them--including the ones wreaking bloody havoc today in Brussels--are. Kanji's plea for us to ignore the jihad and fret about "white supremacists" happens to be the West's current M.O. The rising body count in Brussels underscores the insanity of pursuing that path--of allowing political correctness and fears of being labeled "racist" to prevent us from telling the truth about jihad, its roots in the Quran, and the supremacist dogma that commands--yes, commands--believers to "come here and kill people." Update: Quel shockeroo--Azeezah writes for rabble.Update:George Galloway is one of Kanji's "favorites". 'Nuff said.

Monday, March 21, 2016

Last week I questioned the decision of UJA Federation of Greater Toronto, the organization that holds an annual Walk With Israel, to lend its imprimatur to a "one night only" appearance by playwright Tony Kushner, a vocal Israel-hater. Looks like I'm not the only one who thought that that was a terrible idea (what you see below is from the latest edition of the Federation newsletter--"From the Desk of [Federation president and CEO] Morris Zbar"--that's distributed via e-mail):

UJA Federation disassociates itself from Tony Kushner event

After thoughtful consideration and consultation with our leadership, UJA Federation of Greater Toronto has decided to disassociate itself from an event on May 9th featuring Tony Kushner and presented by the Koffler Centre of the Arts. Mr. Kushner is a member of the Advisory Board of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), an organization that supports boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel. Although Mr. Kushner has publicly stated that he does not support the BDS movement, UJA Federation has concerns about Mr. Kushner’s association with JVP and we will not support an event where there is any link to organizations supporting BDS. Therefore, we are disassociating ourselves from this particular event involving Mr. Kushner, although we remain strongly supportive of the Koffler Centre of the Arts.

Under the circumstances, an eminently sensible decision/disassociation.

Sunday, March 20, 2016

A lawyer I know sent me this, an open letter to Justin Trudeau from two Conservative MPs (both former cabinet ministers) objecting to the candidacy of a couple of Israel-haters in the running to become the next UN Special Rapporteur for Palestine:

PLEASE DISQUALIFY ANTI-ISRAELI CANDIDATES FOR UN SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR FOR PALESTINE

Dear Prime Minister:

We are writing to you today as the Official Opposition Critics for Foreign Affairs regarding two of the eligible candidates for the position of “Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967”. The two leading candidates, Penny Green and Michael Lynk, have both promoted extreme anti-Israeli views. Canada must strongly and publicly condemn these two candidates and strongly advocate for their disqualification.

According to UN Watch, Ms. Green has posted tweets accusing Israel of “ethnic cleansing” and “apartheid” and has compared Israel to the Islamic State. She supports the total boycott of Israel as a part of the Boycott, Sanction and Divest (BDS) movement. She even went so far as to complain that the United States and the United Kingdom have not yet started “bombing Israel for its massacres.” It is absolutely outrageous that such an individual can be considered the leading candidate for any UN body.

Michael Lynk, a Canadian who is currently the second ranked candidate, plays a leading role in the Canadian Palestinian Education Exchange (CEPAL), a group which promotes “Israeli Apartheid Week” events, addresses “One State” conferences which seek to eliminate Israel, and calls for the prosecution of Israel for war crimes. Mr. Lynk also blamed the events of 9/11 on “global inequalities” and “disregard by Western nations for the international rule of law.”

Regardless of the questionable nature of even requiring a one-sided UN Special Rapporteur on these issues, the two leading candidates are prima facie disqualified from the position. The rules of the UN Human Rights Council are clearly defined in resolution 5/1 and 16/21 – the criteria of “impartiality” and “objectivity” are to be of “paramount importance” when selecting and appointing mandate-holders. Ms. Green and Mr. Lynk should have been disqualified from the outset. Furthermore, Richard Falk, who held this position in 2014, is an outspoken supporter of Hamas. To avoid further embarrassment and controversy, while also ensuring Israel is not unfairly targeted yet again by a UN body, this position must be filled by a candidate with an objective voice.

As you know, the House of Commons recently adopted a motion to condemn the BDS movement as an unwarranted attack against Israel. To continue standing up for the right of Israel to exist and live in peace with its neighbours, Canada must exercise its influence at the UN. We call on the Government to write to the Council president, South Korean ambassador Choi Kyong-lim, and call on him to disqualify these candidates as they do not meet even the most minimal criteria of impartiality and objectivity as required by Human Rights Council resolutions.

Given your government’s stated intent to continue building on former Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s strong support of the State of Israel, we trust you will receive advice in the collegial manner intended.

The Daily Mail claims that Marks & Spencer line of "modest" swimwear for Muslim chicks (i.e. its "burkinis") is "the ultimate proof Britain is truly multicultural." (It's either that or ultimate proof Britain has fully embraced its dhimmitude.)

John Podhoretz says he doesn't watch Holocaust movies because "the very act of converting the Shoah into a story on film is a violation of its meaning, its force, and its evil."I tend to avoid this category of movies, too, but not for the same reason as Podhoretz (although I can certainly see where he's coming from). The reason I eschew them is less philosophical and more practical: it's because they are such downers, and because I lack the masochistic tendencies that could well be a prerequisite for being able to sit through them.Take, for example, Son of Saul, the Hungarian flick that won the most recently-awarded Oscar for Best Foreign Film. Here's how Dan Kagan-Kans summarizes the movie's plot in a recent Mosaic essay (spoiler alert for those who plan to see the film and don't want to know its specifics):

Son of Saul follows Saul Auslander, a Hungarian Jew imprisoned in an unnamed death camp resembling Auschwitz. Upon arrival at the camp four months before the film begins, Saul, in his thirties, not large but strong enough, had been spared immediate murder and was put to work as a Sonderkommando, a slave in the camp’s death-machinery. His job since then has been to guide newly arriving transports of Jews from the trains to the camp; to convince them once inside to remove their clothes in an orderly way; to usher them to a shower with promises of soup afterward; to wait impassively outside the chamber door while the screams rise and then fall; to drag out their bodies and deliver them to others who will take them to be burned; and to sort for valuables through the clothes they’ve left behind. Saul does this work with other Jews, each of whom lives in a world of his own; sometimes they exchange whispers, but since they don’t all speak the same language they don’t always understand what others are saying. Besides, what is there to say, and who can be trusted in a place where survival depends on looking out for oneself?

One day, a boy, weak from the gas but still alive, is found in the chamber. He’s carried to a nearby bench and a Nazi doctor is alerted. Saul watches at a distance as the doctor suffocates the boy by hand. Bring the body up to my office for study, he orders—and the movie’s plot kicks into motion.

Saul watches at a distance as the doctor suffocates the boy by hand. Bring the body up to my office for study, he orders—and the movie’s plot kicks into motion.

Saul, claiming that the boy is his son—it’s left open whether or not this is true—decides he must be given a proper Jewish burial. For that he needs to rescue the body and find a rabbi, who will know the rituals and prayers of which he’s ignorant. Saul’s efforts over the course of the film’s two days lead him ever deeper into the camp’s “production” process, from gas chamber to crematorium to ash disposal and on. At each stage he must complete two tasks, one for the Germans—removing bodies, shoveling ash into the river—and one for himself—finding a rabbi amid the shovelers.

A third task, related to a revolt some of the other Sonderkommandos are plotting, sometimes breaks in. Saul is clever, and able to navigate the chaos and unexpected freedom that is allowed a Sonderkommando; except for twice-daily roll calls, no single person is in constant charge of him, and as long as he keeps his head down (which he doesn’t always do) and appears to be working, he can roam a bit.

The two main strands of the plot, Saul’s search and the planning of the revolt, come to a head when the Sonderkommandos receive word that they themselves are soon to be liquidated. Breaking into action, they drag Saul along, sending him to collect some explosive powder that’s been smuggled into the women’s side of the camp. He bungles the job, and in the process causes the death of another Sonderkommando. Both plans begin to fall apart. The revolt fails, though it does allow a few, including Saul and a rabbi he has plucked from the latest shipment of victims, to escape into the Polish surroundings. But the rabbi turns out to be just a pretender with a beard, the child cannot be buried, and Saul loses the corpse while crossing the river. At the end, the escaped prisoners, including Saul, are found and shot.

And, masochism aside, the reason I would want to fill my head with such horrific imagery is...why?

1. Barack Obama, narcissist extraordinaire, for once again high-fiving his done-deal with Iran.2. Bernie Sanders, Socialist blowhard and the only Jew in the presidential race, for giving AIPAC the cold shoulder.3. Rick Salutin, Toronto Star columnist and crypt-keeper lookalike, for his worshipful words about leftist icon/Israel-despiser Noam Chomsky.4. Artie Erdogan, Turkey's strongman/wannabe caliph, for singlehandedly sounding the death knell of free speech in his country.5. Janet Mock, "a black, native Hawaiian trans woman and activist," who canceled her appearance at Brown University (she was supposed to speak about her book--"Redefining Realness") upon learning that the event would be co-sponsored by Jews.Update:Brown University Probes 'Violent, Threatening' Anti-Semitic, Homophobic Graffiti

Saturday, March 19, 2016

Take, for example, CUNY professor Peter Beinart, a committed Jew and Zionist. Recognized as a brilliant scholar of modern Judaic thought, he was also a member of the debating society at Yale University, a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University and a former editor of the New Republic –the youngest person ever to hold that position. Beinart attends an Orthodox synagogue in New York, keeps kosher and sends his children to Jewish day school.

In 2010, he wrote a searing commentary that challenged the norms of the community. An opponent of BDS (though he does support limited boycotts of goods from the occupied territories), he has questioned mainstream Jewry’s commitment to an open tent that would have room for such discussions, no matter how disturbing or how opposed we are to these ideas.

Beinart’s goal is to take the blinders off North American Jewry’s very staid leadership when it comes to Israel and criticism of Israeli policy. In a recent speech to the left-wing U.S. Zionist group J Street, Beinart said, “Any Jewish leader who conflates disagreement in policy with anti-Semitism should be fired.”

No one--I repeat, no one--engages in such a conflation. Israel's enemies, far too many of whom would would describe themselves as "progressive," don't want to change Israel policies. They want to do away with Jewish sovereignty over Israel and replace the Jewish state with a Palestinian one. And that desire, which is obsessive and relentless and frequently quite mad, is the reason why Israel-hate can--and, indeed, should--be considered the Jew-hate of our time.Sadly, Beinart, "brilliant scholar" though he may be, is far too concerned with turning Israel into the "progressive" Jewtopia of his fevered dreams--and condemning its failure to get with his program--than he is with seeing the Zionhass that's all around him, and that is poisoning "progressive" precincts (and Jew-hate, as we know, inevitably destroys its host).Here's how a non-"progressive" Jew sums up Beinart's blarney:

In the past, with regard to terrorism committed against Israelis, Beinart has made statements that have downplayed Hamas’s crimes. Beinart has tried to be an optimist with regard to this genocidal organization and wrote in his book, “Hamas has in recent years issued several new documents, which are more compatible with a two-state solution.” This is in spite of the fact that Hamas’s stated goal in its charter is the murder of all Jews wherever they are found. During last year’s Gaza war, Beinart said, “I don’t think at all that Hamas is pursuing a strategy that is likely to increase civilian casualties by operating from urban areas.” Such comments are patently inane and deeply offensive.

Beinart also wrote an article against Elie Wiesel back in February in which he felt qualified to lecture the Nobel Prize winning author about human rights and Israeli democracy, accusing the Holocaust survivor of a “tendency to whitewash Jewish behavior.”

Beinart in the past has justified Palestinian terrorism as well. He recently said, “While we condemn Palestinian violence, we must recognize this painful truth: that Israeli policy has encouraged it... Hard as it is to say, the Israeli government is reaping what it has sowed.” Beinart believes we must try to understand the terrorists’ motivations underlying their homicidal intentions and try to see what we did to cause them to want to kill women and children.

These very same ideas surfaced in our recent debate when I asked Beinart, “A few minutes ago you said that Israeli policies would be used to incite more terrorism. Do you repudiate this? [When you write that] 9/11 was a monstrous, demented response to American foreign policy, do you thoroughly repudiate what you wrote?” “No!” Beinart responded. “9/11 was a response to American foreign policy. Read what Osama bin Laden said.”

Yes, to Peter Beinart, Osama bin Laden is a credible source.

I was astonished at these dangerous words being spoken by one of the darlings of the academic Left. Bret Stephens, the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and former editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post, reviewed Beinart’s book The Crisis of Zionism, and summed up why his approach is so dangerous. He cited Leon Wieseltier of The New Republic, and wrote, “Characterizing anti-Semitic acts as a response to something Jews did doesn’t explain anti-Semitism. It reproduces it.”

Exactly. The only thing I'd add to that is Carl Sagan's observation that sometimes, when your mind is too open, your brains can fall out.

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Scaramouche is my nom de Web. My real name is Mindy G. Alter, and I like to think of myself as a free speecher with a sense of humour. My bailiwick: fighting on behalf of all the good things that free speech helps safeguard, and doing my utmost to highlight the malevolence and imbicilities of those who oppose freedom, whomever they may be.